Celebration of Life of Laura Onwudinanti Set for Aug. 9

WACO, Texas (Aug. 4, 2014) -- Funeral services have been set for a Baylor University School of Music graduate who died along with another Baylor student in a one-car accident that injured two other students July 29 in Central Texas. They were traveling to the International Clarinet Association conference at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.

A celebration of the life of Laura Onwudinanti will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday, Aug. 9, at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 2024 S. Collins St., in Arlington, Texas.

Laura earned her bachelor’s degree in instrumental music in May and was set to begin graduate study at the University of Michigan in the fall.

Please continue to lift up in prayer Laura’s family members, her friends and those whose lives she touched as they grieve her passing.

A funeral Mass was held Saturday in Dallas for Jack Stewart, a junior instrumental studies major who also died in the accident. Please continue to remember Jack’s family and friends, as well as the students, faculty and staff in the Baylor School of Music, as they grieve the loss of these outstanding students.

The Baylor family also continues to pray for the injured students: Jacob “Jake” Hale, a senior instrumental music major from Fort Worth, who has been released from the hospital, and Megan Ritzi, an incoming freshman from Fort Worth, who remains hospitalized with serious injuries at Baylor Scott & White Hospital in Temple, Texas.

“The hearts of the Baylor University family and our School of Music are broken as we mourn the passing of these remarkably talented students who have been taken too soon from us,” Baylor President and Chancellor Ken Starr said. “We pray that God’s grace and comfort will surround the families and friends of Jack Stewart and Laura Onwudinanti at this terribly sad hour. We continue to labor in prayer for Jake Hale and Megan Ritzi and for their attending physicians as they are treated for their injuries. We ask that the Baylor family keep all loved ones and friends, and our School of Music faculty, staff and students, in their deepest prayers.”